Masks
by LittleBooLost
Summary: Alternate ending to the episode where we meet Rita's husband. During an interview with the police, Connie reflects on the day's events and the importance of a certain nurse in Holby ED. Oneshot.


A/N: Just a little one shot I felt like writing - really an experiment of writing in the first person for once. The title is a bit rubbish, and the formatting isn't brilliant, but oh well. Do leave a review and tell me your thoughts tho - I hope you enjoy it! :)

'It was the middle of a shift change, so the ED was even more chaotic than usual. You know - difficult to be sure who was starting, and who was leaving. But when Doctor Ashford ran back in with a half-dead woman cradled in his arms, well, we discovered the real meaning of chaos.

Rita Freeman. She'd pissed off a lot of people that day, but everyone was shocked into silence when they saw her. Her face was ghostly white and she was completely limp, staring at something we couldn't see. Zoe was the first to run over.'

"Right!" Her voice pierced the silence. "Rita's hallucinating and we think she's taken something. I want oxygen and someone taking bloods so we can run tests, and then we'll start pumping her stomach. Take her into Resus, Ash."

'And the two of them left, Robyn, Lofty and a few other nurses I didn't know the names of followed. I went too, but I stayed out of Resus, just watching.'

'Why not? Why didn't you help?' The police officer leans forwards across the desk, and I shrug. 'I don't know. I think it was shock. My shift had ended so I'd changed out of my scrubs. If I had gone in, I think I knew Zoe would have just sent me out again.'

'Why would she have sent you back out? I thought you were her boss?'

'I am, but treating patients without scrubs on is against procedure.'

'Okay.' He sits back. 'Well, tell me what you saw happening in Resus.'

'Zoe and Lofty started pumping her stomach. After a few minutes - maybe five? - Rita started convulsing.'

'Did Zoe and Lofty give her anything to prevent the seizures?'

I shake my head again, and a lock of hair comes loose from my messy ponytail. 'I didn't see. You'll have to ask them. I personally wouldn't have given her anything, not if she'd possibly taken something already.'

The police officer still hasn't written anything down in his notebook. I'm not sure if this is a good thing.

'And then what happened?' He probes gently, more gently than he was earlier, and I know it's because someone has told him this story already. I know it's because the colour has drained from my face. I know it's because he doesn't want to hear the descriptive account of Rita's death again.

So I stand up, my chair scraping across the tiles, and my polystyrene cup of water falling to the floor. I'm not sure if I let that happen deliberately, but this environment is overwhelming me and I have to make my excuses. 'I need to gather my thoughts. Get some air. Please.' I'm gasping, begging, almost crying now and he grabs me by the elbow, ushers me out of the door and into an uncomfortable plastic chair. And then he leaves me there, alone.

As I sit there, my arms around my chest, I realise I don't want to gather my thoughts. But I do. I gather them tight, and I think about how, as soon as the seizure stopped, Rita's heart stopped too. I think about how her final breath must have made a little cloud of condensation on the gas mask.

I think about how Zoe ripped open Rita's blouse, buttons flying everywhere, and began CPR. I think about the determination on Robyn's face as she set up the defibrillator machine; adrenaline pumping as she fought to save her friend's life. I know she and Rita were close, they were always giggling about something. Only an hour previously they'd fallen out for the first time, and know in that moment Robyn was fearing they'd never have the opportunity to make up.

I think about how, after twenty minutes of CPR and five shocking attempts, Zoe had stepped down, and looked at the clock. It was enough for Robyn to know. She barrelled through the doors and straight past me, her face a sickly shade of grey. Zoe ran straight after her and so did Lofty, leaving the responsibility of pulling the sheet over Rita's lifeless body to two nurses who'd barely ever spoken to her.

My stomach churns.

I think about how I'll never see Rita laughing at the nurses station with again, and then I think about the time Rita laughed so hard she crumpled to the floor, managing to bring a massive stack of paperwork that Fletch had just completed down with her. He'd reacted by taking her files and tipping every last one over her, so that she was swamped completely in some of the most important documents the hospital owned and it had just made her laugh harder than ever.

When Charlie admonished them for 'creating a pigsty and then rolling around like pigs in it,' he hadn't been able to keep a straight face because Rita was still giggling, and her laugh was probably the most infectious thing in the hospital.

I'm remembering every last, minute detail of this memory because it's one of my fondest, and I'm grinning like a stupid idiot because I can still hear Rita's laughter rising an octave with every passing minute. I don't ever want to forget that sound. I'm remembering it because it's a reflection of how happy she made my time at Holby - and I never realised 'til now. I'm remembering it because this is how I want to remember Rita.

I want to remember Rita as a woman who could light up a room with just her smile. I want to remember Rita as the woman who was friends with everyone. I want to remember Rita as the perfect criteria for a nurse, a friend, a person.

This is how we will remember her.

I'll make sure of it.

Because I don't want to accept the fact that it's not the truth. I don't think anyone will. I don't want to accept that her happy-go-lucky personality was just a mask. I don't want to accept the fact that my razor-sharp tongue might have been the reason she committed suicide, and I don't want to accept the fact that I didn't try to save her. I don't want to accept the fact I let something as trivial as 'not wearing my scrubs' prevent me from keeping the most loved woman in Holby Hospital alive.


End file.
